A personal video recorder (PVR) is able to record video in a digital form and replay the stored video. That is, the PVR is able to time-shift video so that video that is recorded can be replayed at a later time. In the conventional art, the input video is heavily processed during the recording process. Specifically, the recorded video is digitized, television decoded, compressed, decompressed, television encoded, and converted back to an analog signal for display. Each of these processing steps is required when time-shifting video.
However, additional time is required for each of the processing steps when recording video. As such, the processed and recorded video lags behind the available live video feed. In addition, each of the processing steps also degrade the video. That is, the recorded video is of a quality that is of a lower quality than the input video signal.
As a result, one of the disadvantages of the conventional technique is that when a user pauses live video, the heavily processed, time-shifted video is used for displaying the paused video. Alternatively, if the live input video is displayed for live pause, there is an inherent latency in the conventional art when switching from live video to displaying a corresponding time-shifted frame that was previously recorded. That is, from the time that the live video is paused at a paused frame there would be a delay of several seconds before the paused frame is available for display from the time-shifted, recorded video. As such, a user would experience pushing a pause button at a paused frame, watching live video that is not paused for several seconds, and then switching the displayed video back to the paused frame, which is back in time from the live video. The paused frame that is displayed is obtained from the time-shifted, recorded video.
Additionally, when the user wants to switch back to live video, thereby bypassing the video processing for recording the video, there is a several second gap between the last, time-shifted frame that is displayed and the first, live video frame that is displayed. This creates a discontinuity for the user when shifting back from a paused frame back to a live frame.